Booking Travel with Costco
OVERALL GRADE – A
Are you a Costco member?
Did you know Costco can book your travel plans?
Just like most airlines and travel review websites (Expedia, TripAdvisor), Costco Travel will also book your travel arrangements . Not only can you book hotels and flights, but you can also book entire vacation packages through them. Cruises, rental cars, theme parks, and guided trips are also available. Although Costco doesn’t provide travel worldwide to all major cities, they do cater to most popular tourist destinations.
Costco prides itself on high quality, brand name vacations. According to CostcoTravel.com, their skilled travel buyers select quality hotels, cruises, and more and negotiate a fair price to pass on to their members. In addition, they also have travel professionals on staff to help with travel planning. Booking travel through Costco should make members feel confident that they are getting a quality vacation at a fair price.
All prices are upfront, providing members with a total cost that includes all taxes and no surprises. Once you make a reservation, you have to pay a deposit on your purchase. Then around 30-45 days before your trip, you pay the remainder of the balance.
Many times a Costco Travel vacation will include a free breakfast with your stay or a room upgrade. Sometimes, you can even earn Costco gift card of varying amounts for booking through them.
Over the years, I’ve been very pleased with all of our experiences booking through Costco Travel. We have never had any major issues, no errors with reservations, and no hidden fees.
These are the three Costco vacations we’ve booked in the past:
- Sheraton Hotel in Poipu, Kauai
- Holiday Inn Beachcomber Resort in Waikiki, Oahu
- Beach Palace Resort in Cancun, Mexico
These three hotels were exactly as described on Costco Travel’s webpage. The photos were recent and information about the hotel was correct. Most importantly, the hotels lived up to my standards. Costco definitely knows what constitutes a quality hotel: great staff; great service; clean rooms; updated decor; plenty of amenities; and an overall excellent stay. I would imagine the rest of Costco Travel’s services provide the same high caliber of service.
We’ve never booked our air travel through Costco, but we’ve booked airport transfers, car rentals, and hotels. With all three hotel reservations, we received a free room upgrade – changing a standard room into a room with an improved view, like an ocean or partial ocean view. Some Costco Travel packages include room upgrades, but some also include free breakfast, dining or spa credits, hotel transfers to and from the airport, upgraded car rentals, or Costco gift cards. With our last vacation with Costco to Beach Palace in Cancun, we received a $325 Costco gift card a couple of weeks after we returned home. Definitely a nice perk, considering we got a great price on the resort!
I definitely will continue to book our vacations through Costco Travel. It takes the guesswork out of vacation planning and definitely makes it easier to book everything through once source. Convenience, quality, and reliability is what you’ll get with Costco Travel.
Happy Travels!
Julie
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Photos: Sheraton-Kauai.com; waikikibeachcomberresort.com
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Betsey Lamborn | 17th Nov 17
Yes. Five months ago I booked a vacation at an all exclusive resort at Playa del Carmen in Mexico, travel dates from 11/24-11/29. My birthday escape.
We were informed yesterday by Costco that our resort’s main pool will be closed and under construction during our entire visit. In addition, the swim up bar and two other restaurants in the resort are closed and they advised us that there will be noise from construction from 8am-5pm. When I called to see if we could change to a different resort, I’m told that I will have to pay $200 to the under construction resort because it’s less than a week until our stay. Costco goes on to say that we were not informed of the construction until after it was not possible to cancel without incurring this fee.
I complained and was told summarily that Costco will NOT offset the cancellation fee (even though I was willing to spend more money to stay at a different resort.) I asked about getting a cash card (for groceries,) or a discount off future travel, or a free upgraded room or free tour once we are there, or ANYTHING to make me feel a little better about giving money to this crappy resort but Costco refuses. I am told there’s nothing they can do. It is clear that they care nothing about 5+ year loyal executive members who spend $10k a year at Costco.
Very disappointed.
Julie | 17th Nov 17
Wow, that is pretty poor of Costco. It’s upsetting that the hotel/Costco didn’t inform you earlier of the construction so that you could cancel. It’s obvious that the resort did this to keep the guests from cancelling, and now you have to spend your hard earned money at a resort under construction, with many things closed. I’m really surprised Costco couldn’t comp you a better room or a cash card as a result. Thanks for sharing your story with us. I’m sorry this happened to you. I hope your vacation turns out to be better than expected.
Linda Jones | 27th Apr 19
Unfortunately this can be the case with any agency someone books through. The harsh reality is Costco Travel makes very little money off selling travel. They receive a small percentage of the total, and that small percentage only covers overhead costs including employee wages. Using this situation as an example…if Costco Travel were to let’s say, give out money to every member that was inconvenienced by what’s going on at the hotel they would go out of business. (Don’t get me wrong, your situation sucks, I’ve had the exact same thing happen to me) Costco Travel tries to be fair but when a hotel property refuses to give Costco information about closures or renovations in a timely manner to warn their members booked with them and refuses to offer any type of compensation then it puts Costco Travel in a bad situation with their members. This can lead to Costco Travel then refusing to renew their contract with that property. But in the meantime Costco Travel has a juggling act to try to give their best service without sinking the business. In order to offer great deals and rates the average person would probably be very surprised at the little amount Costco Travel actually makes off each booking. It’s much easier for any travel business to offer compensation to their customers if the hotel property takes responsibility for their part in the situation and helps out, but the majority of the time they don’t and that’s when Costco Travel loses a lot of money to try to make things right with their member. They would love nothing more than to be able to offer compensation but unfortunately it’s impossible to be able to do that for everyone. I hope you were able to still enjoy your vacation and that you give Costco Travel a try again in the future.
Julie | 27th Apr 19
Well said. Thanks for the info!